/jp/ - Otaku Culture

It just so happens that today, the 13th of April, 2017, is my third year of studying Japanese after first discovering DJT on /a/. Although it was just three years ago that I started studying Japanese, I think it may be worthwhile to some of you to offer myself up as a sort of case study of what may work and what probably won't work, things to emphasize that are easy to forget, things to maybe not worry so much about, and so on. Basically, ask me things and I'll answer from the perspective of someone who's studied three straight years without missing a day. I'll do a brief rundown of what my level is like and what I did to get here. Note that I'm not here to brag, because my level is somewhat shameful for how long I've studied - I've seen people talk about getting N1 in one year and being a god of Japanese within two or three. That's not me. Anyway:

>How did you study?
I first started in 2014 by beginning a kanji radical deck, followed soon by the Core2k/6k anki deck. I started Tae Kim at about the same time. I took a very long time to finish Core2k, as I was learning kanji entirely from it, and at around October 2014 I started a mining deck to replace it, which I continued until around August 2016 (pic), at which I dropped Anki entirely. Aside from the Dictionary of Japanese Grammar anki deck, that is all the active studying I have done. Everything else was just googling things I didn't know, which was often.
>What did you do for the majority of your time?
I read visual novels, light novels, and manga (especially H) for several hours a day every day for the latter 2 years of the 3, and 30m-1h of anki a day for the first 2 years of the 3. I did not do listening practice. I have watched close to no anime. I have watched close to no news/TV. I have not spoken to Japanese people beyond a single time 7 months ago, which went okay. I have written at most three or four kanji, and not from memory. My studying has been pretty much exclusively reading.
>What can you do well?
I can pick up almost any visual novel, light novel, manga, etc, and read it pretty easily. The language is no barrier to me just picking up and enjoying the vast majority of Japanese media. I know over 3,000 confirmed kanji and do not use tools such as texthookers in the slightest, and most of my dictionary usage recently has been using kotobank to learn more obscure definitions of words which don't appear in edict. In other words, I can most things read very well, intuitively understanding grammar.
>What can you do barely okay?
My listening is close to garbage. I can watch anime and pick up of most of the dialogue, but whenever a longer/"rarer" word like 水晶玉 pops up I will very very likely fail to catch it because I'm so reliant on kanji to understand Japanese due to reading so much. I actually often forget how to read even common words because I only see them in kanji, or fail to learn their readings at all. (I had no idea 一日 was ever actually read as ついたち until recently. I read 座る as さわる and 次第 as じだい for my first 2 years of study). I put this as "barely okay" because even common words I can fail to understand due to this kanji reliance, despite usually understanding the majority of common dialogue.
>What do you suck at?
Writing. I cannot write a single kanji, even 私.
Speaking. I stumble like a motherfucker and often struggle to figure out how to express more complex ideas. My speaking also suffers from kanji reliance, as I mispronounce words to a comical extent. If there's a silver lining to my speaking, it's that I've read enough that in many cases (not most, just many), I can produce language identical to what a native would write. It'd just that if I leave my comfort zone bubble of ideas I collapse and start writing cringey obviously foreigner shit. My code is basically, if I can't produce a given idea easily from just my brain, I don't write it. For example, if I'm stuck using a E->J dictionary trying to figure out what word to use in Japanese, I stop right then and there, because I'll probably produce awkward sounding language which will be noticeably foreign.
Culture. I do not know the names of any famous people in Japan (except certain creators of manga and such), I do not know the names of TV shows, I do not know the names of politicians, and I do not know the geography of Japan very well. This makes reading the news absolutely painful because I don't know who they're talking about or where it's happening the majority of the time.
>当たり前 conclusions/advice
1) Make a point to practice listening regularly
2) If you want to write, you have to specifically practice it or you'll never learn
3) Consider an anki deck of famous people names? Fuck if I know how to get over that hump, christ
4) Even at 3 years, I have a lot left to learn and a long ways to grow, but in the meantime I can easily read and have fun doing so. Mission accomplished there.

Any questions? If anyone cares, ask away.